Monthly Archives: December 2014

Rukuku Offers Free Service To Unsafe Schools

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Safe Connection Program

Recent barbaric attacks on school children have made headlines around the world and shocked everyone.

As our contribution to world piece, we at Rukuku decided to launch the “Safe Connection” program for schools and training organizations where student and instructor safety is a concern. If you represent such a school or training organization please email us with an explanation of your needs. We will then contact you to discuss technology issues and to assess the possibility of connecting every instructor and student at your school to Rukuku free of charge. Obviously, we can only help if your instructors and students can access the internet.

Our software products and services effectively enable live and asynchronous instructor-led and self-paced training programs, which eliminate the need for students and teachers to meet in a classroom. We are certain that Rukuku technology products can help schools and training centers in unsafe or war torn regions deal with some of the safety issues by enabling more distance programs.

3 Graphs About Udemy Revenue

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I admire Udemy for their unique approach to managing growth, and I regularly collect and analyze all and any data about them that I can get. The company is a peculiar business case in the growing edtech world because:

  • They are one of the fastest growing virtual training companies in the world
  • Their business model works
  • They can be profitable

My recent annual analysis of Udemy data has yielded interesting results. In short, Udemy is deliberately diversifying its content portfolio and breaking dependencies on particular course providers.

1. Udemy is no longer overly dependent on just one course provider. In January 2014 close to 50% of their cumulative revenues came from a single company in Canada: Infinite Skills. Our November 2014 data shows that Udemy saw that risk very clearly, and worked hard to diversify its course portfolio. This effort seems to have born fruit: 50% of the company’s cumulative revenues now comes from 27 providers. As this diversification took place in the past twelve months, it seems that Udemy’s content managers and the marketing team are making a deliberate effort to break away from dependence on Infinite Skills.

In November 2014, 27 course providers were responsible for 50% of Udemy's revenues.

In November 2014, 27 course providers were responsible for 50% of Udemy’s revenues.

2. Udemy is no longer an Excel training company it used to be twelve months ago. Back in January this year, seven out of ten top courses by enrollment and revenue on Udemy were about Excel. Although Microsoft Excel courses are still VERY important in Udemy’s portfolio, the company has made a successful shift into Software development and Business categories. The new course providers that Udemy has managed to bring in generate quite a bit of revenue in areas of marketing and mobile app development.

Software development and business dominate Udemy's portfolio in terms of revenue.

Software development and business dominate Udemy’s portfolio in terms of revenue.

3. 10% of enrollments drive 50% of cumulative revenues. Udemy remains in a tough spot in terms of pricing and market positioning, although this seems to be changing, albeit slowly. In the online education and training world, I place Udemy in “basic office skills and basic technology skills” content category where brand of course provider does not matter as much as the quality of content they produce. Based on our data, in 90% of cases Udemy’s value proposition is “commoditized knowledge at bargain prices”. 50% of cumulative revenue to date comes from 90% of all enrollments within the “$1-$100” price range. What’s amazing is that the other half of revenues to date has come from just 10% of all paid course enrollments that come from all other price segments ranging from $101 to $5000 per enrollment. Obviously, this is a completely different market segment and it is a least just as important for Udemy as its most popular price segment.

Udemy's difficulty next year would be in managing its polarized user base.

Udemy’s difficulty next year would be in managing its polarized user base.

If you need access to our database, please sign up to my live seminar: I will be doing a live review of Udemy data on January 15, 2015 at 12:00PM PST on Rukuku. During the event, I will present my findings and analysis of online trainig trends that can be glimplsed from comparing 2013 and 2014 data.

When you sign up, you will have access to the full raw database that contains most up-to-date information on Udemy’s courses, user and revenue growth, pricing strategies, etc. After the live event, you will also have access to Udemy January 2013 data as well as my analysis of changes that took place.

Join Rukuku and build your business around your teaching

Its not lack of opportunity, its lack of imagination – Innovative thinking and free will

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A couple of years ago I went on a pilgrimage to Wittenburg – the birthplace of the Reformation. The impact of those events 497 years ago are still being felt today – including a lot of the best things about America.

Martin Luther set the ball rolling on the idea that the result is in our own hands. Too many cultures around the word encourage people to think that their destiny is determined from the day they are born based on who their parents are, where they were educated, who they know and what is expected of them. And this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because they give up before they have even tried.

Never Stop Learning.

Never Stop Learning.

In America the opposite is true – the only thing that limits us is the strength of our own will and the power of our imagination. Be persistent, be optimistic, be self-critical and look to sharpen your skills and those around you every day.

You need to instil the same culture of free will and self-confidence in your team. Exogenous events are to be dealt with and used to your advantage. Everybody should look to constantly improve their performance through training and acquiring new skills rather than just staying in the deterministic comfort zone of what they know they are good at.

The sooner you start the sooner you finish: Start Now and the Power of Iterative Thinking

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Deadlines are important, but not always for the reason that most people think. When the task is a well-defined action and the time required can be easily calculated then you base the calculation on when you start.

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But for bigger business decisions deadlines are not set, they are imposed by forces outside your control. And the deadline is not when a task should be completed but when a decision should be made. In that situation the only solution is to start now, because the longer you think about it, the better your decision is likely to be.

But you need to structure the thought process, make sure to sketch out what the key variables are and how they influence your business decision. Define what you know and what you don’t know. This gives you information gathering tasks to complete. Once you have enough data you organize it and then it is time for the magic to begin.

The ultimate processing device brain will start to iterate the problem. But it is difficult to predict how long it will take for the final decision to appear. Expect the provisional decision to oscillate during the thought process, but for the range to get tighter.

Hopefully you will get a moment of clarity before the deadline is up. But even if you have to settle for a preliminary decision it will surely be more accurate than if you had left it to the last minute.

Encourage your team to work the same way. Leave the big decisions as late as you can but start thinking about them as early as possible. Do the groundwork now and then give your mind the time it needs to work through them. In the downtime this implies do the small, process-orientated tasks or even better some skills sharpening to make your decision-making process even more accurate.

The sooner you start the sooner you finish: Start Now and the Power of Iterative Thinking

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Deadlines are important, but not always for the reason that most people think. When the task is a well-defined action and the time required can be easily calculated then you base the calculation on when you start.

But for bigger business decisions deadlines are not set, they are imposed by forces outside your control. And the deadline is not when a task should be completed but when a decision should be made. In that situation the only solution is to start now, because the longer you think about it, the better your decision is likely to be.

But you need to structure the thought process, make sure to sketch out what the key variables are and how they influence your business decision. Define what you know and what you don’t know. This gives you information gathering tasks to complete. Once you have enough data you organize it and then it is time for the magic to begin.

The ultimate processing device brain will start to iterate the problem. But it is difficult to predict how long it will take for the final decision to appear. Expect the provisional decision to oscillate during the thought process, but for the range to get tighter.

Hopefully you will get a moment of clarity before the deadline is up. But even if you have to settle for a preliminary decision it will surely be more accurate than if you had left it to the last minute.

Encourage your team to work the same way. Leave the big decisions as late as you can but start thinking about them as early as possible. Do the groundwork now and then give your mind the time it needs to work through them. In the downtime this implies do the small, process-orientated tasks or even better some skills sharpening to make your decision-making process even more accurate.

Efficiency: intelligent laziness and the danger of process

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I have spent my whole life being accused of being lazy. I regard this as a compliment. Judge me on my results not on the process, I say. The majority of process is by definition wasteful. The task of the entrepreneur is to eliminate process.

Work Smart.

Is it time to recognise that results are not commensurate with sweat?

The ideal scenario for all entrepreneurs should be a 0% effort and 100% result. That means they can expend that energy on something else. Whenever I am doing something the first question I ask is – do I need to be doing this? Is there someone else who can do it better, faster, more accurately than me. Usually this means automation.

One of my joys is finding great new sources of information. I have recently discovered Similarweb – it is the lazy guy’s dream. It is like having google analytics access to every site on the web. It will save man-centuries of information gathering as well as incorrect decisions based on hunches and inaccurate information.

Train your staff to be as efficient as possible too. Judge them on their results not on following any process. If they persist with a process that is not working then stop it. If they are measuring the process and not the result then you need to recalibrate. Ask them what they are trying achieve and if they give you a process target and not results target then you need to retrain or fire.